Teams, leagues, everyone here would choke on that number. Not that my mercenary bad side would be opposed to it. It’s not the assigning. It’s the reassigning. That is where I would love to charge them extra. Oh. You changed 4 fields? Great. I have to reassign the refs. It’s extra. If there are rainouts that force a redo that I do charge for. I don’t for them just making changes. But I should.
Not many best stories so far in 2024… Was walking to my car after a hs boys game and a mom of a (home, losing) player walked over and introduced herself: I’m pretty relaxed about such things, as I’m in a smaller town and it’s not uncommon to for people to have some connection to me. She explained who her son is: he’s slight kid with good skill, respectful. She went on to say that her son really enjoys it when I ref his games, and appreciates that I take a half second to respond to his questions or occasional protestation. She said thanks and waved and walked off. it was a reminder in these antagonistic times that positive, non-dismissive interactions with young people are not always useless, and might actually mean something to them.
Nice. The only experience I had with my smaller town’s high school team was the site admin calling the police for my protection after a contentious game where I should have thrown out the entire home fan section and then had a referee player on the team the next week that after they watched the film all my calls were correct. Whenever any non team person tries to come up to me postgame at all about anything I try to get away from them as fast as possible before they can even reach me
Similar story here - I was assigned to the last regular season game between #3 and #5 in district, so effectively a playoff game. I had reffed #3 three times and #5 four times this season and have great relationships with coaches and players on both sides (these teams are in one of the highest-quality districts in the state, so I see most of the players in MLS Next/ECNL games the rest of the year). I had to drop the game because I got sick the day before and ended up getting emails from both coaches the next day (1) asking if I was okay, (2) expressing their disappointment that I wasn't on the game, and (3) sharing some really nice words about how they and their players appreciate my communication and game management styles. Still buzzing a bit from that
That's quite a response to have coaches emailing you and praising you just because you dropped a single game, quite a compliment This past Fall when I abandoned reffing weekend soccer for a more lucrative sport, my assignors who I would do the ECNL/NPL youth games for emailed me saying at least one, sometimes multiple coaches in each league were asking where that ref who [my physical description] has been. There weren't any specific praises for my performance though, just "he was a pretty good ref" stuff. However, the adult recreational coed league I do that I also abandoned said that yellow card count league-wide dropped signfiicantly with my departure...
I had a first today: I arrived for a HS game and was warming up, when the home team's athletic trainer came up and introduced himself. We're chatting and he informs me that his team's coach is an absolute nightmare, should have been thrown out of the last few games, he can't understand why he's still here, and it wasn't like this back when he played. (Trainer couldn't have been older than 30.) The coach was just fine.
Usually if I (rarely) have a situation like that where some team representative says a coach behaves badly and doesn’t with me, I assume he was just dealing with poor officials before. And to be clear, I would feel the same with the opposite, if some coach flies off the handle with me and it takes everyone by surprise because he’s usually mild mannered, I would take that to mean I sucked that day
I don't agree. I have seen coaches flip out when the officials have made the right call. I have seen calm coaches when the officials have made incorrect calls.
In one of the rare tournaments I did earlier this month, a coach went out of his way to say hello to me in-between games. The guy is a walking red card. I have my opinion on why this guy gets routinely tossed by referees I know but never says a word to me during the matches. However, I still realize the guy is a walking time bomb and could go off on anybody. I know it's human nature to say "Yeah, but I never have a problem with him!", which I hate hearing people say.
I’m only talking specifically about myself as a center and as a game-long thing, not just one call/no-call Oh and also specifically about coaches who I’m either warned about by team reps or my own personal knowledge about them
The late Clive Charles, women's coach at University of Portland (think Megan Rapinoe) never yelled at officials. But if Clive stood up, you had just screwed up. And he was always right, too.
I've heard that story before. I know some college coaches in my area who will not say a word the entire game. However, they will politely discuss calls if some major error happens.
A few years ago, when I was just starting out and doing more youth games, there was a coach that everybody dreaded. Whenever some coach misbehavior come up, refs would say things like, " yeah, but he is not as bad as "Tony"'. But, for whatever reason Tony treated me like I was his best buddy. The weird thing was that he had every right to put me on his shit list. The first time I interacted with him, it was to call a very marginal IDK on his U-11 GK for releasing the ball into play then picking it back up. (The GK had the ball and dropped it as he was running up to punt it closer to the 18, grabbed it back up on the one hop, and punted it.) After the game Tony talked to me *nicely* about the call, and I said maybe I wouldn't make that call again at U11 for an accidental drop . And we went on our way. Ever since then he treated me like a brother. I still have no idea why I was the one ref he did not yell at. Some kind of Karma that I earned somewhere. But, I still expected him to blast me like he did everyone else -- even kind of wanted him to. ...why am I getting off the hook...
High school varsity boys dual. I'm R1. Home coach is a known problem child. Today, he's on crutches and has a folding chair to sit in, due to injuries in a motorcycle accident. At one point, he asks me "How are they behaving? Do I need to reign them back in?" I indicated that they were about at the line, so to speak, but intervention wasn't necessary yet. A little later, there's a pass by the opposing team, in the air, just inside the touchline in front of the home bench. The ball is going to an unmarked opposing player. This coach reaches out and knocks down the ball! I stop play and caution him. "I thought it was out." Yeah. Sure. After the game, he sent in his referee evaluation form. On a 1 to 10 scale, he rated me a 10 and told the assignor to 'get rid of the other guy' and keep me. The assignor called me and asked if the coach realized I'd cautioned him. I told her yes, "showed him the yellow card and everything." As I tell both coaches and referees before the season, we, referees and coaches, are the adults out there. Our job is to give the players the chance to show their skills, represent their school and learn the life lessons that we learned by playing on high school teams. Treat 'em collegially, until they choose to not treat us collegially.
U11 boys game this morning, first youth soccer for me in a couple of years. The visitors lead 2–1 with a few minutes left. They've beaten the home team's back line to create 1v1 opportunities several times during the match. A fast attacker kicks the ball past a flat-footed defender about 30 yards from goal and is just about to run past him toward goal with the ball at his feet for another impending 1v1 opportunity, but the defender lunges for the ball too late and ends up tripping the attacker. Some referees might choose to call this ”SPA“ with the dubious excuse that 10-going-on-11 is too young to be subjected to the abject horror of being Sent Off, but I don't have any such sympathies and showed the red card. After I recorded the card and walked back to the spot of the foul, I looked back up to see that the kid I'd sent off was staring at me in disbelief, as if he was thinking “this must be a mistake because how could I possibly have done something bad enough to get ejected from the game?” All I could think to do was gesture toward the bench to communicate “yes, unfortunately you did just get a red card and you need to go to your bench now.” The real MVP was his coach, who didn't say a word about it to me at the time or after the game. This guy simply called his astonished young player over to the bench, presumably helped the kid understand what just happened, and kept coaching his team. What an absolute champ. I'd be more than happy to referee 6 games a weekend if all the coaches were like the two guys I had today.
What do you think his review of you would have been if you had red carded him for interfering with play (like the rule book says to do) instead of just the yellow card?
People here who pay attention to the crap I post know I'm very card-happy, but giving a U11 player a DOGSO red card making him not get to play next week with his suspension is really tough. If it was extremely high level U11, like prospective pre NPL/ECNL/MLS next kids, okay I can get it. But anything else... I would just give a yellow card. I understand teaching a lesson, etc. But you're making a 10 year old kid not get to play next week not because of violent actions, or repeated poor behavior with reckless fouls or dissent getting a 2CT, but because of a simple foul that unfortunately was DOGSO. I get it but it's just tough.
In NFHS rule 12.8.2, I do not find 'interfering with play' as a reason for a red card in high school soccer.
What about the other team? In terms of match fairness the visiting team were just deprived of a pretty good chance to make it 3–1 and seal the win—the least they deserve is a 9v8 power play for the last few minutes. I'd happily get rid of the mandatory suspension for plays like this if I were the league commissioner, but any suspension after the fact is not a valid consideration on the field. This attitude is a disservice to the kids by setting their expectations at the wrong level. If you say that's a yellow card this year but might be a red card in some unknown future year, they're going to have a harder time accepting it when it happens later on. The best thing you can do for this young player is tell him “sorry kiddo, soccer is like that sometimes” and hope he remembers this experience in the future.
I believe IF the aforementioned game was played under NFHS rules, it is indeed only a YC. I know I've had to give YC to a HS coach for "helping" stop the ball before it was completely over the line. I think under NFHS it's only a YC under 12-9.1.A entering w/o permission with a DFK restart under 13-2.1.J for interfering with play. AFAIK, NFHS does not have the same send-off for a team official for entering and interfering with play like IFAB does. And I will happily stand corrected if I'm mistaken.
Been doing more UPSL and maybe the stars aligned today but I had such a relaxed game that the first foul didn't come until the 32nd minute. Only 3 yellows and zero coach complains with very minimal player complaints. It had helped I've seen both teams last season. Guess I used up all my good will for the year.
Did you try to explain it to him? At U11, they've probably never seen a sendoff before. "Sorry, you made a mistake and it cost them an opportunity to score a goal. That means you have to go out for the rest of the game."
Yeah, I could have done better with that, but fortunately his coach seemed to be on top of it. Very grateful for this coach's professionalism and knowledge of the game.